August 21, 2019

Elections Roundup

Note: This is an edition of the NM Political Report Elections Roundup, which comes out twice a month on Tuesdays (and will increase to ever week when elections near) as an email newsletter. Sign up to get the newsletter here.

Quick hits

This week, U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján announced he supports impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. See my story on it.

Any links you think I should include in the next edition? Email matthew [at] nmpoliticalreport [dot] com.

Toulouse Oliver gets progressive backing

In perhaps related news, Maggie Toulouse Oliver is getting support from Luján’s left. Last week, the Working Families Party endorsed Toulouse Oliver.

“Maggie shares our working family values because she has lived them,” said Andrea Serrano, Executive Director of Organizers in the Land of Enchantment (OLE) and a member of the Working Families Party National Committee. “As a single mom who lived paycheck-to-paycheck and worked her way through college, Maggie knows the struggles facing most New Mexicans and will fight to improve their lives.”

Action PAC, a PAC seeking to flip the Senate from a Republican majority to a Democratic majority, endorsed Toulouse Oliver. All of the other candidates endorsed by the PAC are candidates running in races currently held by Republicans.

GOP Senate primary

Republicans have rarely had high-profile statewide primaries in recent years. Perhaps it’s the scars of the brutal Heather Wilson-Steve Pearce 2018 U.S. Senate primary, which Pearce won, but then went on to lose in the general election by over 20 percentage points.

Then again, in 2010 Susana Martinez won a five-way primary for governor and went on to defeat Democrat Diane Denish, who faced only a write-in opponent in the Democrat primary.

Now, Republicans are facing another primary in a statewide race, with Albuquerque contractor Mick Rich facing former Trump administration official Gavin Clarkson for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

The winner will likely be an underdog of the winner in the Democratic primary between U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján and Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver.

Democratic primary in CD3

Democrats, meanwhile, have a massive primary brewing in the state’s 3rd Congressional District. Last week, environmental attorney Kyle Tisdel announced he would run for the seat, which Luján is vacating to run for Senate. Tisdel is focused on addressing climate change in his run for Congress.

“We are in a climate emergency, representing an existential threat to people across New Mexico, our country, and the entire planet,” Tisdel said. “The silence in this race on climate change has been deafening. We need leaders in Congress who will make climate change a top priority, and recognize that the work we do to solve this crisis will help to bring greater equity and prosperity to all Americans.”

And just this week, another candidate announced his candidacy: John Blair, a former Barack Obama administration official in the Interior Department and a former Deputy Secretary of State.

“We’ve got Republicans in Congress more interested in their NRA rating than kids being shot at school,” Blair said in announcing his candidacy. “And we’ve got Big Pharma cashing in while we pay through the nose for prescription drugs. Standing up to Republicans and their special interest cronies in Washington has never been more important.”

With the new moves, it means there are eight candidates running for the Democratic nomination in the heavily Democratic seat.

CD2

The seat Republicans are most likely to take back in 2020 is the southern New Mexico seat, long the most Republican area of the state. Democrat Xochitl Torres Small narrowly won the election in 2018 over Yvette Herrell. And Herrell, a former state representative, quickly announced she would run again in 2020. She faces Las Cruces business owner Chris Mathys in the Republican primary.

Herrell received a boost in that effort last week, when the National Republican Congressional Committee named her to the organization’s “Young Guns” program. Herrell was one of 42 candidates put in the “On the Radar” section. In other words, the Republican organization devoted to electing more Republicans to the U.S. House is backing Herrell.

“We will continue to work hard daily building a first-rate campaign operation that will push us over the finish line next November and return a strong conservative voice to the New Mexico Congressional delegation,” Herrell said in a statement.

Related

More About

Public health orders restricting some businesses and public gatherings are slowly being lifted, but the New Mexico Supreme Court’s restrictions on eviction proceedings and limitations on civil cases in general are still in place. State Supreme Court Justice Shannon Bacon said she expects an increase of civil cases once courts are fully functioning.
“What we’re anticipating with the health pandemic and the downturn of the economy and a really high unemployment rate are issues that really raise their head in the same way they did in 2008 and 2009 with the recession,” Bacon said.

Most of the state completed their tallies of ballots, including absentee ballots, but election officials in Taos County and Santa Fe County received permission from district courts to extend the time needed to finish tallying absentee ballots. The two counties, like many others, received an unprecedented number of absentee ballots for a primary election, and numbers that even dwarfed high-turnout general elections in the past.

Join the Conversation on Twitter

Recent Posts

A day after state health officials announced the highest single-day number of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, they announced 129 additional confirmed cases and five additional deaths related to the disease.

State Human Services Department Secretary Dr. David Scrase offered some data supporting the use of masks and social distancing to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
The use of face masks in public has become a polarizing topic among some communities as the state has loosened its restrictions on businesses, including closures, over the last week.
While cloth masks aren’t suitable for use in healthcare settings, Scrase said they are still useful at preventing the spread of the illness among the general public.

Public health orders restricting some businesses and public gatherings are slowly being lifted, but the New Mexico Supreme Court’s restrictions on eviction proceedings and limitations on civil cases in general are still in place.

Matthew Reichbach is the editor of the NM Political Report. The former founder and editor of the NM Telegram, Matthew was also a co-founder of New Mexico FBIHOP with his brother and one of the original hires at the groundbreaking website the New Mexico Independent. Matthew has covered events such as the Democratic National Convention and Netroots Nation and formerly published, “The Morning Word,” a daily political news summary for NM Telegram and the Santa Fe Reporter.